All sorts of matter..

I'm excited about the upcoming Desktop Matters conference, which takes place March 8-9 this week in San Jose, CA. This conference is a first of its kind, focusing on Swing and other desktop technologies.

I'm excited about the upcoming Desktop Matters conference, which takes place March 8-9 this week in San Jose, CA. This conference is a first of its kind, focusing on Swing and other desktop technologies.

The conference is organized such that it has a single track, which I very much like. As much as it's nice to have a choice of talks to attend, I believe there's more value in everyone being in on what goes on, in sharing a common experience. It's not unlike how TV used to be. I recall a place and time where there was only a single national television station. If a movie was on, everyone watched it, and there's something nice about that.

Personally, I will be attending the conference as a speaker: I will be showing off my project: JMatter[2]. It's been a little over six months since I announced the project as open-source. Our mailing list has grown to over 100 users and the feedback has been extremely positive. Some of my favorites are: "you should be speaking about this at JavaPolis" and "the documentation is outstanding." Speaking of the documentation, I have recently expanded it and it now stands at roughly 200 pages. The manual is now available in print as a self-published book from lulu.com[3].

I am looking forward to meeting the members of the rich client community at Desktop Matters. Sometimes as developers we overlook the importance of attending a conference. Listening to a talk or speaking with a colleague can be a catalyst for new ideas, and reinvigorates us when we get back to coding. Perhaps I'll see you there.